Kevin Halliday's heroics give Princeton second straight MCT title

EWING — Princeton bounced back from coughing up the lead with 14 seconds left in the game Thursday to beat Allentown, 11-10, in overtime for the Little Tigers’ second straight Mercer County Tournament championship, capping off a wild finish to the game.

“What more could you ask for in the Mercer County Tournament?” Princeton head coach Peter Stanton said. “Great goaltending, clutch plays, both teams leaving everything out there. What an honor it is to win this year.”

With three minutes left, Princeton led, 9-7, in a game in which Allentown managed to stay alive despite getting outshot, 42-21. The Redbirds were also without faceoff man Trevor Sullivan, who was injured in the team’s semifinal victory against Notre Dame on Tuesday. Midfielder Dakota Wojcik replaced Sullivan in the faceoff X.

“It hurts us a lot,” Wojcik said of losing Sullivan. “We lost two crucial parts of our game two days ago. It was hard. We had to adjust and change in a day, and the fact that we came out here and brought it to overtime in the championship game, we played our hearts out and that’s all I can ask for,”

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Wojcik scored off an assist by Justin Pepe to bring the Redbirds within a goal at the 2:54 mark of the fourth quarter. Princeton held its lead until Allentown defenseman Andrew Clark stole the ball in his own end and ran the length of the field and fed the ball to Wojcik, who tied the game with 34 seconds left.

After the ensuing faceoff, Allentown failed to beat Princeton goalie Kenan Glasgold, allowing the Little Tigers to gain possession with less than 30 seconds left.

It appeared Princeton would hold on for the win, but Wojcik got a gift. A bad clearing attempt gave the ball right back to the junior, and he beat Glasgold to complete a hat trick in two minutes, giving him six goals on the day and his team a 10-9 lead with 14 seconds left.

“I definitely thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance right there, and I felt like with 14 seconds left we had it, but I was mistaken,” Wojcik said.

“When they scored, I was like, ‘Dear lord, I’m not going to able to go home tonight. This isn’t happening,’” Princeton’s Kevin Halliday said.

During the postseason, Princeton has a ritual centered around “the dream rock”, in which players select someone to hold on to it overnight and the following morning. The player tells the team about their dream the following day.

“I don’t think you want to hear it. The language wasn’t exactly appropriate,” Halliday said of what he told the team upon returning the rock Thursday. “I basically said, ‘You know, boys, I worked too hard not to come to this game and win it.’”

Maybe that rock had something to do with how Princeton opened the jaws of defeat so late in a game, only to have Halliday pull out the victory. The senior attacker tied the game with four seconds left in regulation, sending the game into overtime.

“I came up into the wing and I told (the faceoff man) before, Iif I could just get an opportunity here to get the ball — maybe it pops off someone’s stick and it goes into mine — I’m going to go and get this goal for our team,’” Halliday said of the game-tying score. “Somehow I get the ball, I run down, beat the first guy and honestly, even when I was running to the net I didn’t think it was going to happen.”

Halliday then turned into overtime hero as he scored in the first 10 seconds to clinch the championship, beating Allentown goalie Tanner Ferrara while stumbling from a check.

“The overtime was the luckiest play I’ve ever been a part of,” Halliday said. “The ball pops over to (Matt Purdy), then it pops out of (Jackson Andres’s) stick over a guy, hits another guy’s helmet, then I get the ball and it’s me and the keeper. I’m a senior captain and I need to make that play — all I was thinking was ball, ball, ball, goal, goal, score.”